Llanelli’s MP has demanded an urgent rethink over plans to strip volunteer coastguards of their call-out pay, warning the move is “a real kick in the teeth” for officers who risk their lives along the town’s coastline.
Dame Nia Griffith has written to the UK Government minister responsible, calling on him to look into the issue “as a matter of utmost urgency”.
Her intervention comes after HM Coastguard told its 3,500 volunteer Coastguard Rescue Officers that, from this September, they will no longer be paid an hourly rate for attending incidents, training exercises and operational duties.
Officers can currently claim just over £11 an hour when responding to call-outs — a payment designed not as a wage, but to soften the disruption to their own jobs and family lives when they are called out at all hours and in all weathers.
In a letter to Keir Mather, the minister for aviation, maritime and decarbonisation, Griffith said she was “very concerned indeed” by the change.
She warned it was “a very serious matter” in Llanelli, with its long coastline and treacherous estuaries, where holidaymakers and residents alike take to the sea and shore in large numbers.
That risk is far from hypothetical. Only this month, coastguard teams were among those involved in an overnight search of Cefn Sidan beach at nearby Pembrey, after reports of people possibly in difficulty near the water.
Griffith said the £11 hourly rate was “a very modest amount”, but at least acknowledged the sacrifice officers make when they drop everything to respond.
She pointed to the hours volunteers put in to train and maintain their skills — including search techniques to police standard, critical care medical training, mud and water rescue, cliff rope rescues and working alongside rescue helicopters.
“The decision simply to cut this remuneration from September is a real kick in the teeth for these officers, many of whom have given many years of service, and deserve our gratitude, not cuts,” she wrote.
The MP said she understood the change had been forced by a court judgement — but argued there must be another way through. “There must be other ways of dealing with this, which would allow Coastguard Rescue Officers to be rewarded for the sacrifice that they make,” she said.
The change follows a Court of Appeal ruling in January, in a case brought by a former volunteer, which found that coastguard rescue officers were legally “workers” when carrying out paid duties — potentially exposing the agency to wider employment costs.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which runs HM Coastguard, has said the ruling left it no choice but to move to a “revised volunteer model” with expenses but no hourly pay. Its chief executive has insisted the decision does not reflect any reduction in how much the service values its officers.
But the move has sparked anger around the UK’s coastline, with reports of senior volunteers resigning and MPs from several parties demanding the agency think again.
Griffith said she had signed a Parliamentary motion on the plan, written to the minister, and would raise the matter directly in the House of Commons.
She added that she looked forward to a response, telling the minister: “I would be grateful if you would look into this as a matter of utmost urgency.”
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